


iconography

by glitterforplaster (ineffableangel)



Series: threshold [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bottom Bucky Barnes, Dom Steve Rogers, Dom/sub, M/M, Praise Kink, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Slice of Life, Strap-Ons, Sub Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers, Trans Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:11:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffableangel/pseuds/glitterforplaster
Summary: People in the know expected a certain dynamic from Bucky and Steve, a confident cad and his smaller companion, but five minutes in their company disproved all the theories. Steve wouldn’t take anything lying down, and Bucky wore butch the way most men wore their ties, a display of respectability that came off once he was home.(a study in pre-war gay life, aka i read george chauncey's gay new york)





	iconography

**Author's Note:**

> weed is mentioned in the party scene but the sex is 100% consensual. if you're only here for the historically accurate night life, stop reading once they're home.

Bucky was smoking against a shop window when Steve finished with school for the day. Steve burst out of the building with a gaggle of artists— beautiful, affected young men Bucky knew only in passing, from stories and the sidelines of socialist rallies. Steve had his head down, like any decent New Yorker, intent on keeping pace with their conversation and their long legs, so it wasn’t until Bucky snuffed out his cigarette, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and called, “Rogers!” that he stopped. 

When he spotted Bucky across the street, his face lit up, and he smiled that smile Bucky would burn buildings for.

One of his friends, a guy with romantic swirls of inky hair, said something that made Steve laugh and shove at him. The guy met Bucky’s eye steady-on, and smirked, so Bucky knew he was on the level, and there didn’t need to be a fight.

Steve broke away from the group with much jostling and jeering, a flush high on his cheeks. His shoulder bag swung heavy with supplies as he crossed the street, weaving carelessly through the tide of traffic. A cabbie came close to hitting him, and hollered, “You wanna watch where you’re going?”

Over his shoulder, Steve yelled, “If I wanted to, I woulda done it! Hey, Buck,” he said when he reached the other side, breathless but unscathed. “Weissman let you off early today?”

Bucky said, “Jesus fuck, if I had a dime for every different way you find to flirt with danger—”

“You’d be the King of France, I know,” Steve said, hiking his bag up higher. “A powdered wig could only improve your fashion sense. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Pot, kettle. You have paint on your shirt.” Bucky pointed.

Steve tucked his chin down toward his chest, looking for the offending stain, and Bucky flicked him in the face. Steve yelped. “Asshole!”

“Punk,” Bucky said. He softened. Steve had always been a troublemaker, but the word had the tenderness of two truths behind it now, newly minted.

Steve’s indignation dissolved. Boldly, he reached out for Bucky’s wrist, even though they were still standing on the sidewalk. He held it for a moment, then let go. He glanced back over at his classmates, but not cautiously— not, in this case, checking for danger. “Joe’s invited us out.”

“Joe’s invited _ you _ out,” Bucky said. He could still feel the anemic chill of Steve’s fingers covering his pulse. “He the tall drink of Italian soda?”

“No, that’s Jasper, but he’ll be there, too,” Steve said. “Joe’s in the glasses.”

The crowd in front of Auburndale contained at least six men in identical wire frames. Bucky gave up instantly. “Okay. Where’s out?”

“Harlem,” Steve said, smug. He knew Bucky could never resist the triple-whammy temptation of good music, good reefer, and gay company.

*

The air in Joe’s apartment was thick and sweet with sweat and smoke. 

The walls were bare brick, broken up by a tapestry of cutouts and photographs: slinky starlets, posh automobiles, basketball players in tight shorts, and a few of Joe’s paintings. A Lux Laundry ad depicted a frowning housewife with the curlicue caption, _ “I hate men!”, _a contribution by Ruth, Joe’s wife, another artist and a lesbian.

Steve had a similar project at home— a lookbook. Its seams burst with newspaper clippings he’d read between the lines of, preserved tickets from those particular theaters treated to a bit of backrow necking, and the sleek silhouettes of J.C. Leyendecker’s masculine ideal. He wasn’t so bold as to present it on his walls for anyone who wandered in, but he and Bucky poured over it plenty.

Most of the party was crowded into the front room, where someone had put on a Black Swan record, one Steve hadn’t had the pleasure of before. Ruth’s girl was in the kitchen, telling an elaborate and filthy joke to a circle of admirers; the whiskey in her hand sloshed with her loud gestures. In the corner, a pair of men swayed to the music, heads together.

Steve was on the couch, nestled in a curve of warm bodies, listening to his classmates bitch about the latest in a long series of nightclub crackdowns.

“First they shut down the balls, then they banned us from Broadway,” Arnie said, the anger in his voice barely restrained. His fingers clenched around the throat of his beer like he was picturing the head he'd smash it over. “Now you can’t step foot in our finest establishments for fear of a raid. What’s a bird gotta _do_ for a good time?”

“Find an alley,” Jasper suggested.

“Come on, I have some class,” Arnie said. “Not enough for those swanky hotels, but enough for self-respect.”

“There’s always Everhard,” Steve said. “Or the park.”

He would have contributed more, but he was lucky enough not to need cruising, and he was conserving oxygen in the cloying atmosphere of cheap alcohol and copious cigarettes. The open window was within reach. The evening breeze wasn’t enough to counter the strain on his lungs, but he would rather take in half a breath than wriggle out from under Jasper’s arm.

Jasper laid his head on Steve’s shoulder, heavy with dramatics. Steve’s skin thrilled where he touched him. “I wish they’d never made liquor legal. I was perfectly happy underground. Now we’re dragged into the light, dragged out of clubs. I feel like a mole. Put me back in my burrow.”

Arnie scoffed. “You never had a burrow. You’re barely old enough to remember Prohibition, let alone be part of it.”

“_I’m _old. Enough. I miss the mob,” Joe said, wistfully, dreamily. He was laid out on the floor at their feet, his eyes closed, his glasses folded neatly on his stomach. It was true he had a few years on the rest of the group. He was, in fact, a teacher at Auburndale— but he’d smoked his students out thoroughly and shamelessly. “Being in bed with Luciano was the best thing that ever happened to my love life.”

Arnie made a noise of disgust. “I can’t believe you ever ran for him. He watered down his product! I’ve gotten a better bent on paint fumes.”

“But I was protected,” Joe said. “Used to be, I’m stopped by a copper, I tell him who I work for, and it’s his boss, too. Mutually assured destruction. Now I have nothing to hold against him.”

“I can think of something,” Arnie said.

Joe rubbed his cheek with the heel of his hand and sighed. He was a quiet, earnest man, and often exhausted by his students. Steve liked him, and tried to stay on his good side, but Arnie was fond of stirring him up. “Don’t be crude. Whatever happened to class?”

“Don’t censor me,” Arnie countered. “I only claimed to have_ some._”

Arnie began to prepare a joint. Someone said, “Give it to Rogers,” and its components were passed along the line to Steve’s careful fingers. He twisted it effortlessly and passed it back with a piece of newsprint as a filter. 

“Professional,” Jasper said, admiring it. “Remind me how you’re poor, again?” 

Steve cracked up at the thought of making his salary rolling joints for art students. Laughter made him rasp, and he tipped his head back against the couch pillows, trying to relax his airway.

From here, he had a decent view of the fire escape. Bucky had been out there for some time, chain-smoking with Ruth over the railing. Steve followed the glow of his Lucky as he gestured hard with his hands, his passion captured by something she’d said.

“Art should make a statement,” Jasper was saying when Steve’s attention drifted back. “Art should turn you on. If I have to look at one more Degas ballerina, I’m taking a tumble off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Whatsa matter, Jas,” Steve said, “ballerinas don’t turn you on?”

Jasper laughed his easy, liquid laugh. Steve felt it, and the thrum of the jazz, through his spine.

“You want fuckin’ _ life,_” Arnie agreed, “it ain’t fuckin’ _ Degas. _ It ain’t people in fields of flowers. It’s people in factories, fighting for a living wage. It’s families sleeping six to a room. It’s us pansies at parties, smoking and talking and, _ fine, _dancing, but not in _ tutus_.”

“I’ll wear a tutu,” Bucky said, sliding up from the side, silent as an alleycat. His Lucky had disappeared— likely somewhere in the street. “Point me to it.”

“You’d look good in it, too,” Jasper said. “Gorgeous stems.”

“What, these old things?” Bucky hiked up the leg of his pants and pointed his toe. He showed off a strip of hairy ankle.

“Put those away,” Joe said from the floor. “You’ll make a man blush.”

“Which man?” Bucky looked over at Steve, all sly.

“Your man,” Jasper answered, taking his arm from around Steve’s shoulders. “Best get him back to Brooklyn, Barnes, he’s a lightweight.”

“I’m not drunk,” Steve protested, struggling against Jasper’s attempts to prop him into a sitting position. He snuggled back into the sofa cushions. “I’m just _ happy.”_

“‘I have learned that to be with those I like is enough,’” Joe quoted from the floor.

“Hey, Whitman,” Bucky said. “He was a fairy, you know.”

“Aw, jeez,” Steve sighed. “You got him started. Buck, you think that about every author you like.”

“We’re everywhere, Stevie. Queers and commies and Jews. I welcome you to prove me wrong. Besides, Whitman wouldn’t mind.” Bucky stole the spliff from between Arnie’s fingers and took a deep drag. In a smoky, spell-casting voice, he recited, “‘Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, the friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest, who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour’d it forth.’”

A beat of appreciative silence passed, interrupted only by the sound of the phonograph skidding to a stop as its song finished. Jasper said, “Bet you get all the guys that way.”

Bucky caught Steve’s gaze again. His long lashes were a whisper of shadow on his cheek. “Only the ones who appreciate art.”

Steve’s chest burned with equal parts pride, arousal, and impending asthma attack.

Jasper followed their look. To Steve, he said, “Does he parrot poetry in bed?”

Steve uncurled himself from Jasper’s side and stood up from the sofa unsteadily. He snaked his arm around Bucky’s waist, for support and out of a strong desire to lay claim to him: sweet-talking property of S. G. Rogers. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.” 

Bucky swung his own arm around Steve’s shoulders. “I can parrot more than poetry. Cereal boxes, comic books, the Bible— you name it, I’ve memorized it. I contain multitudes.”

“You’re fulla shit,” Arnie said.

“That’s what I just said.” Smiling down at Steve, Bucky said, “Hey, slugger. We heading home?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll let you take me home. Since you asked so nice and all.”

“_Nice?_” Bucky repeated. “I ain’t nice.” He scrubbed his jaw, then slid his hand up the side of Steve’s undershirt and tweaked his nipple in front of all his friends. “‘Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is burning within me,’” he said into Steve’s good ear, putting a lascivious spin on it, the same as he’d earlier used a reverent one. “‘Let’s go, Jack, I’m _ red-hot.’”_

Steve snorted and batted his hand away, embarrassed. But his exhibitionist streak could span the entire East Side, and it was only enabled by this particular crowd. Jasper wolf-whistled.

Steve pulled Bucky towards him again, taking a generous fistful of his hair and planting a kiss along his jaw. “‘Be careful how you drive,’” he quoted back; he didn’t know any poetry, but he knew that stupid propaganda film. “‘Or you’ll end up ice cold.’”

“Not a problem, tiger,” Bucky said— in his normal voice, but soft, so only Steve could hear. His breath was hot on Steve’s neck. “Tonight, I want _ you _ to drive.”

Steve’s own breath hitched. It wasn’t from the smoke. “Home. Home_ right now_.”

Bucky laughed; he knew he’d won. “Great party, professor,” he said to Joe as they stepped over him, still clinging to each other. Joe might’ve been treated to a choice eyeful of Bucky’s crotch, if he’d bothered to open his eyes. “‘I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.’ Tell Ruth goodbye for me.”

Joe waved them off. “Be safe, you crazy kids.”

“Safe is for the straight,” Arnie said. “Be stupendous.”

*

They took the train home to Brooklyn Heights.

The urgency they’d had leaving the party, hands roaming over each other in the dark side streets of Harlem, had faded to an anticipatory silence. The New York subway was not sexy, only hot, and a few hours away from its ripe bouquet had done nothing to improve their tolerance. But the promise at the end of the line was enough. In their own apartment, they could take their time. They could be tender.

People in the know expected a certain dynamic from Bucky and Steve, a confident cad and his smaller companion, but five minutes in their company disproved all the theories. Steve wouldn’t take anything lying down, and Bucky wore butch the way most men wore their ties, a display of respectability that came off once he was home. A childhood of brawls and books had turned him into a faultless liar. Only Steve and their small group of sisters were allowed to see him with his hair down— tonight, quite literally. 

Steve had started the process at the party, but their stolen moment before the subway had devastated Bucky’s slicked-back hairstyle. A few coils fell across his brow, still dark with Brylcreem, betraying a hint of his background; it curled up when he neglected product.

Because Steve couldn’t kiss him here, he nudged him. “Remember when you chewed that guy out for spoiling the new Agatha Christie for you?”

“Like you don’t get into fights for far less,” Bucky replied, muffled. He was chewing the paint from his nails. He’d begun wearing polish before he moved out of his parents’ place, but never so boldly as he did these days, in broad daylight, no longer afraid of his father’s reaction. Buck could tangle with the best of them, but the one bully he’d never hit back was George Barnes. “Remember when you puked on that girl’s shoes?”

Steve countered, “Remember the cat?”

“Aw, fuck,” Bucky said. “I loved the cat.”

For a moment, Steve lost him to the memory of the woman who had boarded with a live tabby hidden in her coat. Bucky had immediately charmed his way into playing with the kitten until it, and its owner, got off in Queens. He had a soft spot for strays. Steve was living proof.

They lapsed into silence. Crammed into the sideways seats, their thighs could touch without suspicion.

In front of their building— still too soon— Steve slipped his hand into Bucky’s back pocket. Bucky hissed, “_Death _ wish,” and Steve laughed, low and wicked. He had to be herded up the stairs and through the doorway of their apartment before Bucky would return any of his advances. 

It was worth the wait.

Bucky kissed him in the kitchen, cradling his face as he dropped his bag and shrugged off his leather jacket. Steve smiled against Bucky’s mouth. He slipped Bucky’s suspenders past his shoulders and set to work on his shirt. Bucky stood patient, pliant, watching Steve pop the buttons. 

Bucky could wrap his fingers around Steve’s wrist, no trouble, but Steve was the one calling the shots, and Bucky wouldn’t do _ anything _ with his fingers til he was told. They liked that. They liked it a lot.

“Did you have anything to drink?” Steve asked, voice low, bent toward his work. “Did you smoke?”

Bucky shook his head. “Just Luckies. You?”

“Contact high, but it’s faded. I’m perfectly coherent and ready to destroy you.”

“Promises, promises. How do you want me?”

“On your stomach,” Steve said, soft but sure. “On the bed.”

They had two, for appearance’s sake, and for when Steve felt poorly and Bucky insisted on treating him like the Queen of Sheba with a hundred blankets and pillows— but they really only used one, so Steve didn’t need to specify. 

Bucky went over and laid himself out while Steve gathered their gear: the jar of Vaseline that seemed never to run out, the belt and sock garters he’d sewn together for a harness, and the dildo.

Steve skinned out of his underthings and into the strap. The sight of a cock jutting out from his hips made him giddy, even if it was made of clear glass instead of flesh and blood. He ran his hand over it, stroking it as lovingly as if it were his own. For all intents and purposes, it was. He wished he could wear it all the time. He pictured it straining against the seam of his pants, calm defiance in the face of anyone who challenged him.

When he looked up, Bucky was watching with heavy-lidded eyes, cheek resting on his crossed arms. His left leg was crooked up, showing off the gleam of his inner thighs, the swell of his ass. 

If art should turn you on, then Bucky Barnes was art. Steve had a sketchbook full of him like this: bare, open, bathed in moonlight or the dawn, waiting for Steve’s attention. 

Steve straddled him. The bed dipped beneath their combined weight. “Hi, beautiful.”

“Who you callin’ beautiful, handsome?”

“You, you dandy.” Steve bent and kissed his nape, then the space between his shoulder blades. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“I like to hear you say it.”

Steve’s fingers trailed down, tracing the line of Bucky’s back; muscles rippled beneath his skin. His breath was a warm puff of cumulus cloud. “You’re _ pretty_.”

Bucky preened at the praise. “Pretty enough to be your muse?”

“Oh, plenty.”

“Your friends tease you about me, huh?”

“All the time. They’re relentless.”

“They see your drawings?”

“Yeah.”

“The dirty ones?”

Bucky loved attention. Steve loved to give it to him. For all that he ribbed him for his posturing, he was of the strong opinion that Bucky, caretaker of all creatures sweet and small, deserved to be spoiled. “Jasper liked the one of you strung up like Saint Sebastian. He asked me for a copy.”

Even the curve of Bucky’s arm couldn’t hide his pleasure. He’d put a pillow under himself, and he squirmed against it now, angling his hips up. "He likes us."

"He's not hiding it," Steve agreed. "We should invite him to join in sometime."

Bucky whined, “Stevie.”

“Right here, tiger.”

“Not close enough.”

“Oh, yeah? Any idea how I could get closer? I’m open to suggestions.” 

Steve pulled back briefly, in search of the Vaseline. He found it in the bedsheets, and popped the lid. Bucky spread his legs at the sound. At this point, it was Pavlovian. 

Steve waited patiently. When it appeared that Bucky was waiting for _ him,_ he said, “Well?” and traced a shiny slug trail across Bucky’s asscheek. “Where are our manners?”

“My mistake. Please, stick your skinny arm where the sun don’t shine.”

Steve didn’t move.

“Oh my God,” Bucky muttered. “Please, _ sir._”

Steve grinned wickedly. “I like to hear you say it.”

Then he set in on fingering Bucky, until Bucky was panting into the pillow, past prepared and making himself a home in hungry.

“So good to me,” Bucky breathed. He was balanced on one elbow, his torso twisted so he could watch. His body was a vice around Steve’s middle and ring fingers. “My boy. My sweet thing. So good with your hands.”

“Well, you took the whole canon of literature,” Steve said. “I had to be good at _ something_.”

Bucky smiled, already worn out, although Steve was doing all the work. His hair curled damp across his forehead, all his earlier arrogance stripped away, leaving only naked want. He looked like a dream. “You’re good at everything, baby. Want me to recite a little?”

“Sure. While you still can.” Steve crooked his fingers deeper. It was a promise. 

Bucky shivered all the way down his spine. He tipped his head forward onto his arms again. “‘Divine are you inside and out,’” he said, his voice slightly shaky, “‘and you make holy whatever you touch or are touch’d from—’ shit, Stevie— ‘the— the scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer, this head more than churches, bibles, and all the c-creeds. If I worship one thing more than another, it shall be the spread of your body.’”

“What’s that from?”

“Whitman, again. With some editorializing.” Bucky made a plaintive noise as Steve added a third finger. “Holy _ Hell_, honey, _ please_.”

“Please _ what? _” Steve braced his free hand on the back of Bucky’s neck; a hot, controlling weight, pinning him to the mattress. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. “You love words so much, then use them. Tell me what you want.”

“Want you to fuck me,” Bucky said, breathless, arching into Steve’s hand. His body was under Steve’s thumb, and that was where it would stay. His bravado was gone; here, at home, he didn’t have to be tough. “Want you inside me, filling me up. I’m so ready, I’ve been ready, I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, baby. Steve, sir, _ please_.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve said. Faux sympathy hid a very real tenderness. “You have been waiting. You’ve been patient. Let me treat you right, give you what you want so bad. What you _ need._ What only I can give you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed. “Yeah, yes, you’re the only one. Please.”

Steve gripped his hips— admiring how his hands, too big for his own body, looked so right on Bucky’s— and rolled forward. Bucky rolled with him. Steve’s cock, a solid curve between them, slid slick between his thighs, the head rubbing against his hole.

“Thank you,” Bucky breathed, without even any prompting. “_Thank _you.”

“Good boy,” Steve purred.

Bucky stopped squirming, went slack; legs open, mouth open, every inch of him offered up for the taking. Those words were all that he wanted. That was what he’d been holding his breath for. Though Steve said it to him often, Bucky reacted as if every time were the first, as if he lived every moment in pursuit of that praise. Of any praise at all. Steve could do anything to him now, and Bucky would be grateful.

So Steve would give him exactly what he deserved.

Steve made an executive decision. “Flip over. I want to see your pretty face while I fuck you.”

Bucky flipped onto his back. His eyes tracked lazily down Steve's body, to the glass between his legs, glowing with light from the streetlamp outside. It threw patterns across the wall as he moved. Bucky spread his legs and Steve lined up, hand on his hip.

“Position okay?” Bucky murmured.

“Don’t worry about my back,” Steve dismissed. “Are _ you _ ready?”

“I get any more _ready_, you could fit the whole army in there.”

“Now who’s making promises?”

Steve took pity on him and finally put it in, one slow, steady press, enough time for Bucky’s body to adjust, but not enough for his brain to: he went _ah, ah, fuck, _in a way that Steve wanted to bottle and save somehow. The heady rush of _doing_ something for once, something _good_, giving someone so much pleasure they couldn’t see straight, and not just someone but _Bucky_, his beautiful Bucky, his best girl who always took care of him, and now Steve was returning the favor.

Steve was aware of saying some of this out loud as he thrust into Bucky, shallowly at first, then further, harder, Bucky squeezing around him, his back arched, his body tugged up by an unseen force, by strings or arrows or the sheer desire to be close to Steve, as close as they could bear. He moaned like he loved this, like he couldn’t survive one day without it, and as much as Steve knew it, intimately and a thousand times over, it still shocked him that Bucky _ wanted _ this, wanted _ him_.

Bucky's hair fell across his face with every thrust, and found its way into his mouth. He shook his head like a racehorse to clear his sight without using his hands— because he wasn't allowed, Steve remembered, it was one of their rules. Bucky couldn't touch himself, Steve was in control of even that, of everything. Warm pride suffused through him.

Steve brushed Bucky's hair back for him, and couldn't resist taking a little handful and yanking. Bucky's eyes rolled up. Steve laughed, then groaned; as he pushed his dick into Bucky, his dick pushed against him, a hard press on the exact pressure point of his— He was bent forward now, and it _did_ hurt his back, but he'd never admit it, and the rest of him felt fantastic. His chest brushed Bucky's stomach, his over-sensitive nipples rubbing into hot skin.

Bucky reached up and tugged on one. Steve reacted without warning, gasping and burying up to the hilt in Bucky, which must have been Bucky's plan all along. Bucky said _ uunh _like he’d been socked in the stomach, and Steve knew from experience what he was feeling: his insides lit up like live wire, full and whole for the first time.

His cock drooled a thick glob of pre-cum and his fingers flew to catch it. Steve swatted him away, stilled inside him: he’d go no further.

“_No_,” Bucky cried, fucked too brainless for manners. “Please, I’m sorry, I— It’s just so _ good, _Stevie, _ please._”

Steve traced the inside of Bucky’s thigh and the divot of his hip, not touching the one place Bucky needed him to. He could feel the wet heat pooling inside himself, the thrill of his power, and the leftover jolt of Bucky’s hand on his chest. “I don’t negotiate with brats.”

“I’m _ sorry_.”

“Uh huh. You think the rules don’t apply to you, but you don’t get a pass just for having a perfect mouth.” Steve pushed his fingers between Bucky’s lips. Bucky took it so well, let Steve touch his tongue, his teeth, any part of him he wanted, pliant and eager to please, to prove something. Softer, Steve said, “You can be so sweet when you wanna. Be sweet for me and I’ll let you come tonight.”

“Yes,” Bucky agreed desperately. “I will, I promise, I won’t disobey.”

“Good, that’s good,” Steve said. “I believe you, Buck, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself, honey, you get so stupid for it, forget your own head if I didn’t help. I’ll have to hold you down to be sure.”

Steve gripped the wrist he could reach, and pinned it to the sheets beside Bucky. Bucky offered up the other one, and Steve pinned that, too. With Bucky immobilized, Steve gave him his reward and slammed into him. He pulled out slowly, agonizingly, watching the glass stretch Bucky’s hole until Bucky was writhing, whining, welling up with tears. When Steve was almost all the way out, he shoved it back in, relishing Bucky’s whimper.

After that he set a brutal pace, and it wasn’t long before Bucky relaxed into it, _mm, mm, mm, thank you, sir, _every inch as sweet as he’d sworn to be. The ticket was to make him misremember this as Steve’s idea, as something he did for Steve, a favor, a submission, when really it was all about him, about how far Steve would go for him.

Steve released Bucky’s wrists and was delighted when Bucky didn’t budge, stayed right where Steve had put him. He wrapped his hand around Bucky’s cock, silky skin throbbing with life. Bucky was so warm that he was cold, so in bliss that Steve could cry. He swiped over the head with his thumb and spread the slick around, sent sparks up Bucky's spine; he could practically see them in the dark.

"You wanna come?" Steve said, fighting for his confident mask, when he, too, was falling apart. "You think you deserve to come?"

Bucky slurred something that didn't sound simple.

"Yes or no?_"_ Steve's breathing was rough, dangerously close to rattling. He couldn't do much more of this, but he wouldn't give up before he got what he wanted. "Show me."

Bucky said, "_Yes,_ _sir_."

“Come,” Steve commanded, and Bucky obeyed with a shudder.

Relieved of his duty, Steve dropped to the bed beside him, wheezing lightly. When he’d caught his breath— the little there was of it— he slid the harness over his hips and set it on the floor beside the bed, too exhausted to wash it right away. 

He rolled over and spooned Bucky. His arm snaked under Buck’s to stroke his fuzzy chest. He wanted this too someday— chest hair, taut muscles, this easy masculinity. It almost hurt how much Bucky tried to cast it off, when Steve would steal it without a second thought.

Steve rested his forehead on Bucky’s back, between his shoulder-blades. He wanted more from his body, but Bucky didn’t make him feel small. They fit together so well, whoever made them must be proud of the work.

“I love you,” Bucky mumbled.

Steve would never, _ never _get sick of that. “That’s the best thing you’ve said all night.”

Bucky didn’t respond; maybe, in his hormone-fueled haze, he hadn’t heard.

Steve sat up, peering over Bucky’s shoulder to see what he’d half-suspected: Buck, after an evening of smoking, socializing, and a thorough schtuping, was out. Steve smiled to himself and settled back down, tucking his face into Bucky’s back. He would cross oceans, scale mountains, commit the impossible, for the sound of Bucky’s steady, sleep-safe breath.

If the world burned tomorrow, Steve wouldn’t regret a thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> it’s hard to make period-accurate sex sexy or safe. by the 1930s we had only just discovered dildos didn’t have to be wood or metal, but you can’t use a rubber on rubber, or an oil-based lubricant, because both will destroy your condom. k-y did come out with a water-based option in 1904, but vaseline and crisco were vastly preferred-- this is so well-documented that it became a bit of a pop culture phenomenon in the gay scene. i went with glass because it's non-porous and does not contain a terrifying spring.
> 
> also, do/do not google vintage vibrators. there’s a lot wrong with our current century but at least we have sex toys that won’t explode.
> 
> chris evans really can roll a perfect joint: a club promoter was once quoted as saying "he even used a drink ticket to make a filter. it happened in less than a minute and he didn’t bother sitting. it’s one of the best joints i’ve smoked.” i think about this every day.


End file.
